The Indigo King - James A. Owen [103]
Dear Christ, thought John. Mordred is laughing.
Mordred threw back his head, eyes wild, and in a moment his frenzied laughter turned into an agonized, soul-searing scream. He rose to his feet, still bleeding, and pushed past Arthur and Taliesin to the crypt, where he disappeared into the passageway below.
The companions moved back to the table, where Merlin was sitting and holding his head in his hands.
“Are you all right, Merlin?” John ventured, staying back out of reach of the short sword.
“I was going to kill you myself!” Merlin cried, looking at Arthur with a bewildered expression. “Why, Thorn? Why did you prevent Mordred from killing me?”
“Because,” Arthur replied, “I didn’t believe then, and don’t believe now, that anyone needs to die to become the High King.”
“That,” said Taliesin, “is the reason you were able to draw Caliburn at the tournament.”
“Then how was it that Mordred’s spear shattered Caliburn?” asked Jack. “Arthur is far more noble than Mordred. In my opinion, anyway.”
“It wasn’t a matter of nobility, but a matter of belief,” Taliesin replied. “In the moment that they met, Mordred’s belief in his motivation was greater.”
A tremendous crashing arose from within the walls of the castle, and the clashing of steel could be heard. The war was coming to the heart of Camelot.
“Is it Arthur’s forces, or Merlin’s?” asked John.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Arthur. “My main support had been Mordred’s, and the soldiers were his as well. Everyone else, all the other tribes, had been united under Merlin before he tried to overthrow me.”
Taliesin agreed, with sadness and regret radiating from his face. “Under the Binding, I had trained them all to respond to the will of Merlin, on Arthur’s behalf,” he said, “but none of that will matter now. If you have the means to take him away, Arthur must flee, and rule in exile.”
John and Jack knew what it would mean if Arthur left now. Merlin would try to rule until he was overthrown by Mordred.
And then, despite all they had done, the Winterland would still come to pass.
“There is a way.”
It was Merlin who spoke.
“When you drew Caliburn,” he began, “and won the tournament, you were acknowledged as the High King. As the Arthur, Pendragon. The liaison between the Summer Country and the Archipelago of Dreams. But there was one step you didn’t take … were not allowed to take. One I never allowed those who knew,” he said, looking at Taliesin, “to tell you about.
“There are those more powerful than the armies of man,” Merlin went on in a somber voice, “and as High King, you have the right to command them.”
“Where?” asked Arthur. “Who are they?”
Merlin turned to John. “You know where, and you know how,” he said. “Don’t you?”
“Stonehenge,” John said breathlessly. “We can use Stonehenge, the Ring of Power, to summon the dragons of the Archipelago.”
The small group, including Merlin, left the castle through the crypt passageway, pulling the cover stone over it as they went. It would not take long for it to be discovered, but by then they would be miles away.
Taliesin, with some assistance from Jack, secured horses for all the companions and took the lead, heading toward the standing stones John called the Ring of Power. As they left the passageway and waited for the horses, Arthur was anxiously scanning the countryside, looking, hoping, but to no avail.
Mordred was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
It took several hours for the companions to reach Stonehenge, and all the while they rode, the skies behind them filled with smoke. Camelot was in flames.
Arthur glanced to his left, at the girl called Rose, who was riding behind Hugo on a black mare. There had been little time for discussion, but he was wise enough to have pieced together who she was, and what she had done to save him. He watched her, saddened, and hoped that their support of each other would extend beyond the present moment. That was, he believed, how it should be. In a family.
He patted the bag at his side,